SESSION The Senate and Chamber of
\nDeputies in Bucharest on Wednesday went on their first Parliamentary session
\nthis year. Draft laws on complying with the terms assumed through the National
\nPlan of Recovery and Resilience are high on the agenda. Leaders of the main
\nruling parties, the Social Democratic and the National Liberal Party, have also
\nannounced among their legislative priorities, several projects on education and
\nthe special pensions reform. The Liberals want to raise the ceiling for pension
\ntaxation and the local and Parliamentary election of 2024 to merge. The
\nSocial-Democrats have announced they are working on a new ruling programme and
\nthe Social-Democratic president Marcel Ciolacu who is going to take over the position
\nof Prime Minister, has announced the idea of cutting labour taxes and
\nincreasing the taxation level for the companies with huge profits. The
\nopposition USR and Force of the Right have tabled a simple motion against
\nInterior Minister Lucian Bode entitled Romania deserves better than thieves on
\npublic jobs, amid forgery allegation concerning his PhD thesis. The Senate has
\nendorsed a declaration reiterating its commitment to strengthening legislative
\nefforts to commemorate the Holocaust victims and underlines the need for the
\ninvolvement of all state institutions and citizens so that human rights may be
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PROTEST Roughly one thousand employees from Romania’s education
\nsystem took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the low salaries in their
\nline of work. According to the protesters, the nonteaching staff makes the only
\ncategory of state employees who hasn’t yet reached the pay level stipulated by
\nthe 2022 law. Salaries for nonteaching employees are ranging between 366 and
\n468 euros and trade unions in the country’s education system have called on the
\ngovernment to endorse a law allowing the nonteaching personnel to get proper
\npay. <\/p>\n
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UKRAINE The Russian invasion forces are making small progress on
\nthe front in eastern Ukraine – international news agencies report. Their main
\ntarget remains the city of Bakhmut, which they have been trying to seize for
\nmonths without success. Both Bakhmut and the neighboring villages of Kli\u0161kiivka
\nand Kurdiumivka, located south of the city, came under new Russian fire.
\nAccording to the Ukrainian military, though, the Russians allegedly got stuck
\nnear the town of Avdiivka, the second focal point of their attacks in the
\ndisputed Donetsk region. Troop movements are also registered in Lyman, a city
\nrecaptured by the Ukrainians in October. In an unusually detailed intelligence
\nupdate, British Ministry of Defense experts, who are constantly monitoring the
\nsituation on the front, note that Russian forces have advanced several hundred
\nmeters across a river towards the town of Vuhledar, and recorded made small wins.
\nSpecialists say that Moscow’s troops would like to attract the Ukrainian forces
\ndefending Bakhmut to Vuhledar.<\/p>\n
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VISIT The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, will be paying
\na formal visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, on February 2-3, at the invitation of his
\ncounterpart, Ilham Aliyev. The two presidents will open the Ministerial Meeting
\nof the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council.
\nThe visit by the Romanian president comes in continuation of the very
\ngood talks held with the Azerbaijani president, in Bucharest, in December 2022,
\non the occasion of their participation in the signing ceremony of the Agreement
\nbetween the Governments of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and
\nHungary regarding the Strategic Partnership in the field of green energy
\ndevelopment and transport. In Baku, the state of implementation of regional
\ninterconnection projects such as the submarine electricity transmission cable
\nwill be assessed and the initiation of similar projects in the digital field
\nwill be addressed. Azerbaijan is the first country in the South Caucasus region
\nwith which Romania raised bilateral relations to the level of Strategic
\nPartnership in 2009.<\/p>\n
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(bill)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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